Memento is a neo-noir-psychological thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from his brother Jonathan's short story "Memento Mori." It stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby, a former insurance fraud investigator searching for the man he believes raped and killed his wife during a burglary. Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia, which he contracted from severe head trauma during the attack on his wife. This renders his brain unable to store new memories. To cope with his condition, he maintains a system of notes, photographs, and tattoos to record information about himself and others, including his wife's killer. He is aided in his investigation by Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss), neither of whom he can trust.
The film's events unfold in two separate, alternating narratives—one in color, and the other in black and white. Leonard's investigation is depicted in five-minute color sequences that are in reverse chronological order. As each scene begins, Leonard has just lost his recent memories, leaving him unaware of where he is or what he was doing. The scene ends just after its events fade from his memory. The black and white sections are told in chronological order, showing Leonard conversing with an anonymous phone caller in a motel room. By the film's end, the two narratives converge into a single color sequence.
Memento premiered on September 5, 2000 at the Venice Film Festival to critical acclaim and received a similar response when it was released in theaters on March 16, 2001. Critics especially praised its unique, nonlinear narrative structure and themes of memory, perception, grief, and revenge. The film was successful at the box office and received numerous accolades, including Academy Award nominations for Original Screenplay and Editing.
Bloody images from Ex-Yugoslavia on the classic war theme of a son who has to leave his mother and his family home to go to war. One day, the son returns, in a tank, with orders to meaninglessly destroy his own village. He hesitates and for a brief moment the war stops before the tanks continue their deadly assault. Written by
Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard (Guy Pearce), a ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line movies forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time. Written by Scion013
Leonard (Guy Pearce) is an insurance investigator whose memory has been damaged following a head injury he sustained after intervening on his wife's murder. His quality of life has been severely hampered after this event, and he can now only live a comprehendable life by tattooing notes on himself and taking pictures of things with a Polaroid camera. The movie is told in forward flashes of events that are to come that compensate for his unreliable memory, during which he has liaisons with various complex characters. Leonard badly wants revenge for his wife's murder, but, as numerous characters explain, there may be little point if he won't remember it in order to provide closure for him. The movie veers between these future occurrences and a telephone conversation Leonard is having in his motel room in which he compares his current state to that of a client whose claim he once dealt with. Written by
Point blank in the head a man shoots another. In flashbacks, each one earlier in time than what we've just seen, the two men's pasts unfold. Leonard, as a result of a blow to the head during an assault on his wife, has no short-term memory. He's looking for his wife's killer, compensating for his disability by taking Polaroids, annotating them and tattooing important facts on his body. We meet the loquacious Teddy and the seductive Natalie (a barmaid who promises to help) and we glimpse Leonard's wife through memories from before the assault. Leonard also talks about Sammy Jankis, a man he knew with a similar condition. Has Leonard found the killer? Who's manipulating whom? Written by